Page 45 of Keeping Kasey (Love and Blood #3)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Kasey

There are only a handful of customers here, and none of them spare us a glance.

A waitress with way too much hairspray in her updo waves for us to seat ourselves, and I follow Logan to a table in the back of the restaurant.

“You realize we just passed a dozen empty tables, right?” I remark as we sit down.

“This is the only one that gives me a view of the entire restaurant.” He jerks his head to the kitchen. “And a secondary exit nearby.”

“Do you always plan for disaster to strike?”

“It’s my entire job—especially when we’re here without security.”

I imagine James wouldn’t be happy to know that.

“What would you have done if this table was taken?” I ask.

He points to a table on the far side of the restaurant that’s blocked in by a partition separating it from another table. “I’d still be able to survey the room from there, and the partition would grant enough cover until I could make a break for the exit.”

Wow. He puts that much thought into where he sits at a restaurant.

Once upon a time, I would’ve teased him about that and proceeded to ask tons of hypothetical questions about how he’d handle being put in various situations. What if he were trapped on a rooftop bar? A yacht in the middle of the ocean? An elevator stuck on the top floor?

Instead, silence falls, and we avoid making eye contact.

I might’ve extended the olive branch tonight, but I’d be stupid to think it’s a good idea to let my guard down.

The waitress sets two glasses of water on our table and takes our orders: a deluxe blue cheeseburger for Logan and a plain cheeseburger for me.

She walks off to tend to the other customers, and I sneak a glance at Logan.

He surveys the room with a seemingly neutral expression, but I can practically see the wheels turning behind his eyes.

“What?” I ask.

He sucks in a deep breath, like bracing himself for a fight.

“Elise and Moreno are coming into town tomorrow.”

More people to avoid. Lucky me.

“You don’t have to warn me about staying away,” I tell him. “I have no intention of seeing either of them.”

“It’s not that,” Logan starts, voice tight. “Elise is demanding that you come to dinner at the manor tomorrow night.”

I blink twice, waiting for the punchline.

It doesn’t come.

“I’m not doing that,” I say evenly.

“That’s what I told her, but she isn’t taking no for an answer.”

“What does that mean?”

“She’s threatening to bring everyone to the hotel if you don’t come to the manor.”

Usually, being pushed into this would piss me off, but—while I’m not happy about it—the lack of aggression in Logan’s countenance makes anger seem like a pointless reaction.

“What possible reason would she have for wanting to see me?” I ask. “We’re not friends.”

Logan watches me for a moment, but I avoid his gaze. I refuse to let my mind go where his undoubtedly has—a conversation we had in Detroit.

“It’s one dinner,” he says.

“And I’m sure you’ll find an adequate way to get her to back off.”

“What will it take to convince you?”

I study him, but all I can see is his exhaustion. “You care so much about this that you’d negotiate?”

He nods once.

My instinct is to tell him to screw off, but I don’t. After all, I’m being presented with an opportunity, and I’m not about to let it go. What I actually want is to know how Logan found me, but there’s no way he’d answer me, so I go for something I can get.

“I want my gun back.”

He shakes his head, eyes taking on an analytical edge. “That’s already part of our original agreement.”

I shrug.

“Fine,” he agrees, far more easily than I expected. “But not on base property. You can have it at the hotel.”

“That’s no different than not having it at all.”

Now, it’s his turn to shrug.

“My gun, whenever and wherever I want it.”

He leans back in his chair. “I’ll waive restrictions on one condition.”

I brace myself for the trap I’m no doubt walking into, but once again, I’m oddly at ease because of Logan’s lack of smugness.

I lift an eyebrow.

“Tell me where you spent the last four months.”

My annoyance fizzles out, and a familiar darkness takes its place. My heart feels like it’s dropping to my stomach, and I wish I could see through Logan’s impassive expression to figure out why he even wants to know.

“Questions about—”

“When you were gone are off-limits,” he finishes. “I know. I’m asking you to tell me anyway.”

Something in his tone, in how genuinely curious he is, gets to me.

The last thing I want to do is talk about that time, but maybe telling him the mere locations won’t be so bad.

And it’s worth it to get my gun back. I know it’s unlikely, but I could end up in another situation where fleeing is my only option, and if that happens, my gun will be essential.

It would be easy to lie—to give Logan a random story that will satisfy his curiosity.

But lies got us here in the first place.

“I stayed in the city for a week, then I flew to Toledo—”

“No, I tracked you to Cincinnati and Nashville,” he interjects, and I only blink as his face morphs into realization. “You set up fake leads,” he mutters. “Of course, you set up fake leads.”

His resigned frustration has me biting back a smile as I go on. “I stayed in Toledo for a while before going to Birmingham, Jackson, then—”

“Little Rock,” he guesses.

My throat feels like it’s closing up, and I nod.

“Burning down my motel was hardly necessary,” I say, keeping my voice carefully controlled.

For some reason, I expect him to look smug at the mention of his big stunt, but he wears the same blank face that I do.

“Agree to disagree,” he says tonelessly.

I drink from my water, but my throat is still dry even when I empty half the cup.

“After that, I decided I was done with cities, so I went to Payson.”

“And met Mark.”

Logan still wears a blank mask, and I wish I could pry back his exhaustion to see what’s really going on inside his head.

“And met Mark,” I confirm.

“He had flowers when he came to the door.”

“And a gunshot wound when he left.”

Logan looks away, but I don’t get the feeling it’s out of guilt. If anything, he only seems to be backing off because of my defensiveness.

“Why did you do it?” I ask after several seconds.

“I already told you. He got in my way.”

“No, he didn’t—”

“He got in my way,” he repeats, and something in his earnest gaze tugs at me. There’s a shadow of something primal barely hiding behind his eyes, and it’s a look I’ve only seen on him one other time—the club after family dinner.

Logan isn’t making up an excuse to justify what he did.

He’s telling me the raw, messy, bare-bones truth—he was jealous.

“I don’t owe you an explanation,” I remind him.

“I didn’t ask for one,” he says, lifting and dropping a shoulder. “But that wasn’t the only reason I shot him.”

“Enlighten me.”

“You needed to see me the same way everyone else does.” His lip tugs up in a hollow smile. “The vile, cruel monster .”

I meant the words when I said them, but do I still think that about Logan?

I should. He’s given me no reason to see him in any better light, and he said himself that he wanted me to know that side of him.

“Was it worth it?” I ask.

“You’re here, aren’t you?” he says, his tone casual, but I get stuck on the words.

Does he mean having me in Chicago, giving him the list, or having me here , sitting across from him in a booth at a dingy burger joint?

I ponder that as we eat, but I don’t have it in me to ask.

We finish our food in silence, and I’m inexplicably relieved that the weariness in Logan’s face has eased, even if the dark circles beneath his eyes are still firmly in place. Only a good night’s sleep will fix that.

Logan pays the bill, and when we drive back to the hotel, the silence in the car is different—lighter. The thick tension is gone, and I feel more relaxed than I have in weeks.

It’s the first time I’ve felt any semblance of peace in Logan’s presence, and it feels good.

Too good.

I force myself to read every button’s label on the car’s dashboard, then I do it again and again. Anything to avoid the avenue my brain is begging to wander down.

When we get to the hotel, we climb the stairs to our floor, but we stop when we reach our doors.

I pull out my keycard.

He pulls out his.

Neither of us moves to unlock the doors.

“I don’t remember the last time I went so long without wanting to kill you,” I say, a sardonic smile just barely lifting my lips.

“Don’t worry. It’ll be back before you know it,” he says, and his green eyes crease with amusement.

Even in this zombified state, Logan is hopelessly attractive.

It’s the kind of tragic beauty that makes a person lose their inhibitions, especially when he smiles at me— really smiles at me—like he is now.

Being the object of his attention is like taking a hit of a drug I just recovered from—only, I never recovered from Logan.

I’m starting to think I never will.

I hold my hand out. “I believe you owe me something.”

“Your gun is at the manor. I’ll give it to you when we go tomorrow.”

I hate having to wait, but since I’m not in any real danger, I suppose the extra day won’t kill me.

“Goodnight, Kasey,” Logan says as he unlocks his door.

“Logan?”

When he lifts his gaze, I’m struck by the undisguised hope in his eyes. For a fraction of a second, all I want to do is kiss him.

I want him to kiss me .

I swallow back that particular desire and ask, “Why did you want to know where I was?”

His smile falls into contemplation, and I almost wish I hadn’t said anything. I don’t want to taint our otherwise decent night.

After a few seconds, I’m about to tell him to forget it, but then his eyes fill with a steely resolve, and he says, “I spent the entirety of four months wondering. Figured it was time I got an answer.”

“You thought about me every day?”

“Every single day,” he says without a hint of mockery or bashfulness threatening his solemn features.

I have no idea how to respond to that—to the genuine, raw truth Logan freely gives me.